The Last Airbender: To Boycott or Not? - Dante Basco

Dante Basco - the Filipino American actor who voiced Prince Zuko on Avatar: The Last Airbender on Nickelodeon writes about the current live action adaption on his blog.

I for one am not watching. I am very happy the critics panned the movie. I hope the viewing public does too. Aang Ain't White!

From Dante Basco:

The fact of the matter is, in Hollywood… it’s not fair. It’s not fair at all, the tables are tipped unfavorably for ethnic actors. The percentage of roles for ethnic actors to white actors is something to the effect of: in 100 roles, there may be 12 roles for black actors, maybe 7 for latin actors and only maybe 2 for asian actors. And with stats like this, its a little distressing that when actual roles for Asians come in a big budget film, they don’t get cast. Now I understand if you have to cast a big star like a Jake Gyllenhaal to warrant a budget in the hundreds of millions, but I think its different when you are casting unknown actors and children at that, with a franchise with an almost guaranteed. I think it’s a missed opportunity for the voice and the face of the Asian community, when will a project like this and of tis magnitude come along again? I don’t know the young actors they cast, I hope they do a great job, I myself was a child actor and I know the stress and joy booking a big film like this could be. but the crime is not giving the opportunity some Asian kids. See, we wonder why there are no real Asian stars in America, part of the reason is because of things that happen like this. Stars don’t just happen out of thin air, Hollywood helps make them. This was an opportunity to give the chance to some Asian kids to become stars for the future generation and we missed it. See, if you can get some Asian actors in the machine of Hollywood and they exist as a viable commodity, it can spark more projects that can support the voice and face of the Asian community and level the playing ground a little. But when we can’t even land roles that were so clearly created as Asian roles, its a bit disheartening. At least Dev Patel got cast, even though, I wanted to play the role, originally they had Jesse McCartney cast to play Prince Zuko.

Read more at Dante Basco